Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois bringing STEM opportunities to girls

Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois robotics program has had great success so far this year.

During recent FIRST LEGO League (FLL) tournaments for 9-14 year olds, four of ten competing teams won awards and one squad qualified for the state tournament. A team of older girls in the FIRST TECH Challenge (FTC) league starts competition in January and has been busy giving demonstrations of their robot design and programming skills – including marching with their scene-stealing “candy cannon” in several holiday parades. GSSI is also gearing up to host a Jr FIRST LEGO League Expo (a science fair style robotics event for students age 6-9) for the southern Illinois region. GSSI’s “robot revolution” is indicative of the Girl Scout movement’s ongoing commitment to bringing girls relevant, exciting opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Read more.

Girls With Toys

by Kate Clancy for Slate

By high school many girls drop science classes despite outperforming the boys who stay.

On Saturday morning, I turned on NPR while I made breakfast for my daughter and me. We had a big day ahead: first the farmers market, then a nearby forest preserve’s migratory bird festival featuring a mist-netting demonstration and the chance to take home and dissect your own owl pellet.

I listened to Scott Simon introduce a piece in a series called Joe’s Big Idea, which is intended to explore “how ideas become innovations and inventions.” The piece was about a scientist, and I’m a scientist, so of course my ears perked up as Joe Palca interviewed Caltech astrophysicist Shrinivas Kulkarni. It started on a great note: Palca asked Kulkarni what is beyond the universe, and they had a conversation on abstract versus practical questions in astronomy. Then, Kulkarni made a statement that is getting a lot of attention.
Kulkarni: “Many scientists are I think, secretly, are what I call ‘boys with toys.’" Slate has the story and twitter photos of women scientists with their toys.